Encouragement, Excuses, and the Only Reason Why
by CharmingNotDarling
Summary: He's stood beside her all this time and managed to maintain a shell of indifference in regards to the simple fact that she is indeed a woman. It wasn't until their dynamic shifted, until she found her footing in her new place at his side, that his regard for her truly swayed...


Encouragement, Excuses and the Only Reason Why

**A/N: I would just like to take a moment to thank the lovely and talented **_**handful of sky**_**… For her patience, kindness, and attention to detail… Without her help this story would never have made it here:) Oh and if you're not reading her story, "A is for?" You're most definitely missing out…**

He hears her heels on the stairs and knows she's hesitant.

Whether it's in anticipation of the festivities she's promised to attend or his judgment in regards to her choices he cannot say. All he knows is he does not want her to go and it's troubling him as to why. She'd invited him to join her, played the act of partner, companion and finally friend, all while trying to acquire agreement on his part. The last was laced in enough sentiment to leave him more than slightly awestruck. In the end he reacted the only way he knew how and turned her down without reason or cause.

He's stood beside her all this time and managed to maintain a shell of indifference in regards to the simple fact that she is indeed a woman. It wasn't until their dynamic shifted, until she found her footing in her new place at his side, that his regard for her truly swayed. Her confidence cast her in a new light, brought the pieces of her he'd simply dismissed back into the forefront of his vision. Now she can't smile at him without his breath catching and his heartbeat stuttering.

He's not used to being caught off-guard by something as seemingly simple as beauty.

She stops at the threshold of the room and he can feel her gaze burning at the back of his head, a mirror of the blaze he's set before himself. She's lurking again, hovering like a hummingbird or, more accurately in his mind, like a guardian angel.

"This is becoming quite a habit of yours, Watson, lingering in doorways and almost saying what you're thinking." She shifts her feet, and though he doesn't see, he knows she's rolled her eyes in that way she has that involves almost no drama and too much grace.

He listens as she lifts off the doorframe and takes a few steps forward. She stops behind him, just over his right shoulder. Knowing she's purposefully staying out of his line of sight, he does not give in to the overwhelming desire to turn and see her. He can tell by the lack of sound that the dress she's chosen has little to it. He recognizes the tell of satin brushing skin and is startled to find he's wondering after the color she's chosen and how it plays in contrast to the raven hair she's left down to frame her face.

He can't begin to understand how he knows she's left it down.

They haven't spent a day apart since Moriarty left her mark on them. They've shared every meal, invaded every boundary, and slept nearly every night without a closed door between them. The last is more his doing than hers. He'd been unable to sleep with the brick and mortar of ceilings and walls sealing the distance between them, so on the nights she actually retired to her own bed, the chair below her window saw more of him than his own room. On the nights she seemingly couldn't drag herself away from their work, the couch in the front room did the trick for her and the floor beside it, the same for him.

He's never been faced with the need to protect before.

He's still trying to understand how she's managed to find the man behind the madness when he couldn't even find himself. How she continues to maintain a strong hold over his instincts to build walls between himself and the people who are daring enough to venture into his life. He's amazed to find she's single-handedly taken down the wall he'd erected between them and built a bridge from the rubble.

Now he gets to keep his distance, and she gets to breach his boundaries.

He's spent the majority of their time together giving himself the benefit of the doubt, for his open-mindedness and his ability to put some faith into someone, anything, again. And yet, these last few weeks have shown him that he had very little to do with it.

"I'm altogether sure you understand me well enough by now to know I'd rather the truth and the weight of its consequences than the burden of evasion that's left in the wake of all unsaid." He tries to sound bored, attempts to place some indifference between them.

He hears her sharp intake of breath over the pop and hiss of the fire. He knows she's startled and relieved and nervous all at once, wonders where all her insecurities are coming from. When she rounds the corner of his chair, places herself off the right of the mantel, he can see remnants of a Watson he hasn't seen in quite some time hovering behind her eyes. He sees the woman who couldn't find herself, the one who was unsure of where or if she actually belonged anywhere.

"I don't want to go." It's said on an out breath and it's heavy and fast, like it's been building inside for some time and the pressure has all at once become unbearable. She tries to make light of it, to make it sound ridiculous and slightly unimportant, but the words are coated in conviction. He thinks it may be the only thing she's confident of in the moment, and it's what she's clinging to.

He takes in the sight of her then; the satin of her dress is gathered over one hip and it pulls the fabric in such a way as to make the entire thing look like waves rippling over her body. The color bathed in firelight takes him back to London, reminds him of early evening twilight and how the remnants of the sun would play off the mist clinging to the air. How everything would be cloaked in a veil of pale gray and lavender, a web of delicacy that simply could not hide the strength underneath.

As predicted, her hair is a stark contrast and it pulls his eye to the waves that frame the column of her throat and further to the strands that shadow the rise of her cheek. It startles him to find that she's afflicted by his assessment. Their eyes meet briefly before she shifts to hide the mahogany gaze he knows is brimming with turmoil.

He's never seen her look more beautiful or less confident.

She shifts under his scrutiny and he clears his throat to push past the words gathered at the base of his tongue. He forces himself to thinking before he speaks and it's not something he's all together used to. He finds he wants to tell her that she's beautiful and that she shouldn't go, doesn't have to go, that she should stay with him, always. Because this is where she belongs, but in the end he disappoints himself.

"So what is it you've come looking for then? Encouragement, excuses?"

She turns to pace the length of the fireplace and rolls her eyes again. This time he sees a touch more drama and a little less grace.

She manages to cross his path once and then he moves so quickly, she's not the only one he startles.

He lunges forward, left hand taking hold of her thigh directly below the hem of her dress. His fingers find purchase along the curve behind her knee and they're gentle; the pressure he exerts to pull her toward him is more suggestion than demand. She meets his eye and follows his hold without a beat of hesitation. When her shin bumps the chair between his knees, he tugs again, this time with enough force to have her body cant toward him. She presses her knee to the leather and drops a hand to his shoulder to steady herself.

He holds her gaze and watches her eyes go wide as his fingers trail up the line of her inner thigh, stop when the satin hem catches his wrist, and then slowly trail back down.

She shifts her weight, drops her hand to the arm of the chair and the movement brings her face inches from his. It sends her hair flowing like a curtain around them, pooling along the line of his shoulders, throwing their expressions into near darkness.

He lifts his hands to cup her face and hears her nails tighten on the leather of the chair. His eyes instinctively lift and find hers in the barely-there light. There's desire swimming in her gaze, hesitation and doubt clouding her sight, but she lifts her feet off the floor and slides into his lap. Her breath is shallow and it catches when he drags both hands up the length of her thighs, pulls the satin up to lap at her waist so he can settle himself fully within the cradle of her hips. She leans in until their noses bump and then he drags her closer, their lips nearly brushing, until their cheeks rest side by side.

He gives in and presses his mouth to the curve of her jaw, trails upward and sinks his teeth into the flesh of her ear, continues back down along the column of her throat. He can't fight the rise of his hips when she lets out a breathy sigh at the contact. Her hands span his shoulders, nails searching for purchase along the shirt at his back before they rise to fist within his hair, pulling his torso off the chair and flush against her. She takes his face in her hands, drags his lips within a fraction of an inch of her own.

"No excuses," she all but whispers into his mouth; the tone has him opening eyes he didn't know he'd closed. He finds her watching him, her powers of observation honed and at the ready. "I don't want excuses." Her voice a little stronger the second time and he can't help but smile, because this is the Watson he's come to know and treasure beyond anything else in his life. This is the woman who demands that he meets her halfway, who never gives up and rarely gives in.

She's the only thing of any worth he's ever called his own.

He wants to tell her that she's worthy of so much more than something as simple as the truth. That there aren't words enough to do justice to the way she makes him feel. He knows this for certain because he's spent hours, days searching for them, scouring poetry and literature, trying to find a way to bring his devotion to voice.

He brushes her hair away from her face, drags a thumb over the freckles that pepper the bridge of her nose as he feathers the pads of his fingers along the line of her eyelashes.

He knows he's never experienced anything like this before, can't claim to understand how, fully clothed and without ever tasting her mouth, this has become the most intimate moment he's ever experienced. When he presses his lips to the hollow of her throat, feels her heart beat wildly beneath the silky skin, hears it echo within the drum of his own, he somehow knows they are more than the equals he had come to see them as.

"My dear Watson," He slips a hand behind her, feels the heat of the fire rival that of her skin as he takes the tiny zipper in his grasp, "No excuses or evasions or variations of the truth." She nods in agreement, drops her forehead to meet his as he begins to slowly pull the dress away from her back. His movements are slow, purposeful. His left hand pulls the tiny teeth of the dress apart and his right follows the path of her newly revealed spine.

"Stay." He tells her in same breathless way she had conveyed her desire not to go. He opens his mouth to say more, to hopefully find those words that continue to evade him, but she doesn't seem to need them.

She captures his lips, her tongue slipping gently into his mouth, and she's so warm and soft and powerful.

"Yes," she says as she slips from his lap, takes him by the hand, and leads him up the stairs.


End file.
